Stories and Pictures Part 33

ONLY GO!

I forgot to tell you that the rabbi of the little town would neither come to see me nor allow me to visit him.

He sent to tell me that it was not his business, that he was a poor, weakly creature, besides which he had been sitting now for several weeks over a knotty question of "meat in milk," and then, the princ.i.p.al thing, he was at loggerheads with Kohol, because they would not increase his salary by two gulden a week.

There came, however, three householders and two beadles.

I began with mine host. He has no wife, and before I could put in a word, he excused himself for it by asking, "How long do you suppose she has been dead?" lest I should reproach him for not having found another to fill her place.

Well, to be brief, I set him down a widower, three sons married, one daughter married, two little boys and one little girl at home.

And here he begs me at once to put down that all the sons--except the youngest, who is only four years old "and Messiah will come before _he_ is liable to serve"--that all the others are defective[61] in one way or other.

With the exception of the two eldest sons, I already know the whole family.

The married daughter lives in her father's house and deals in tobacco, snuff, tea, and sugar; also, in foodstuffs; also, I think, in rock-oil and grease. I had bought some sugar of her early that morning. She is about twenty-eight years old. A thin face, a long hooked nose that seems to be trying to count the black and decaying teeth in her half-opened mouth, cracked, blue-gray lips--her father's image. Her sister, a young girl, is like her; but she has "Kallah-Chen,"[62] her face is fresher and pinker, the teeth whiter, and altogether she is not so worn and neglected-looking. I also see the two little boys--pretty little boys--they must take after their mother: red cheeks, and shy, restless eyes; their twisted black curls are full of feathers; but they have ugly ways: they are always shrugging their little shoulders and writhing peevishly. They wear stuff cloaks, dirty, but whole.

The mother cannot have died more than a short time ago, long enough for the cloaks to get dirty, not long enough for them to be torn. Who is there to look after them now? The eldest sister has four children, a husband who is a scholar, and the shop--the little Kallah maiden serves her father's customers at the bar; the father himself has no time.

"What is your business?" I ask him.

"Percentage."

"Do you mean usury?"

"Well, call it usury, if you like. It doesn't amount to anything either way. Do you know what?" he exclaims, "take all my rubbish and welcome, bills of exchange, deeds--everything for twenty-five per cent, only pay me in cash. I will give up the usury, even the public house! Would to G.o.d I could get away to Palestine--but give me the cash! Take the whole concern and welcome! You imagine that we live on usury--it lives on us!

People don't pay in, the debt increases. The more it increases, the less it's worth, and the poorer am I, upon my faith!"

Before going out to take further notes, I witness a little scene. While I was taking up all my things, paper, pencil, cigarettes, Reb Bruch was b.u.t.tering bread for the children to take with them to Cheder. They had each two slices of bread and b.u.t.ter and a tiny onion as a relish.

"Now go!" he says; he does not want them in the public house. But the little orphan is not satisfied. He hunches his shoulders and pulls a wry face preparatory to crying. He feels a bit ashamed, however, to cry before me, and waits till I shall have gone; but he cannot tarry so long and gives vent to a wail:

"Another little onion," he wants. "Mother always gave _me_ two!"

The sister has come running into the tap-room, she has caught up another onion and gives it to him. "Go!" says she also, but much more gently.

The mother's voice sounded in her words.

WHAT SHOULD A JEWESS NEED?

We go from house to house, from number to number. I can see for myself which houses are inhabited by Jews and which by non-Jews; I have only to look in the window. Dingy windows are a sure sign of "Thou hast chosen us," still more so broken panes replaced by cushions and sacking. On the other hand, flower-pots and curtains portray the presence of those who have no such right to poverty as the others.

One meets with exceptions--here lives, _not_ a Jew, but a drunkard--and here again--flowers and curtains, but they read _Hazefirah_.[63]

The worst impression I receive is that made upon me by a great, weird, wooden house. It is larger, but blacker and dirtier than all the other houses. The frontage leans heavily over and looks down upon its likeness--also an old, blackened ruin--upon an old, dried up, bent and tottering Jewess, who is haggling with her customer--a sallow, frowzy maid-servant--over an addition to a pound of salt. The beadle points the old woman out to me:

"That is the mistress of the house."

I was astonished: the Jewess is too poor for such a house.

"The house," explains the beadle, "is not exactly hers. She pays only one-sixth of the rent--she is a widow--but the heirs, her children, do not live here--so she is called the mistress."

"How much does the house bring in?"

"Nothing at all."

"And it's worth?"

"About fifteen hundred rubles."

"And nothing is made by it?"

"It stands empty. Who should live there?"

"How do you mean, who?"

"Well, just who? Nearly everybody here has his own house, and if any one hires a lodging, he doesn't want to have to heat a special room. The custom here is for a tenant to pay a few rubles a year for the heating of a corner. Who wants such large rooms?"

"Why did they build such a house?"

"_Ba!_--once upon a time! It isn't wanted nowadays."

"Poor thing."

"Why 'poor thing?' She has a stall with salt, earns a few rubles a week.

Out of that she pays twenty-eight rubles a year house-tax and lives on the rest--what should a Jewess need? What can she want more? She has her winding-sheet."

I gave another look at the old woman, and really it seemed to me that she was not in need of anything. Her wrinkled skin appeared to smile at me: What should a Jewess need?

NO. 42

I went from house to house in their order of number, with a note-book in my hand. But from No. 41 the beadle led me to 43.

"And 42?" I ask.

"There!" and he points to a ruin in a narrow s.p.a.ce between 43 and 41.

"Fallen in?"

"Pulled down," answers the beadle.

"Why?"

"On account of a fire-wall."

I did not understand what he meant.